Evolution of the New York City Skyline via Smithsonian Magazine

•  Good Luck: A web project dedicated to amalgamating a ‘universal’ terms of service system
• The demise of the daily deal website business model
• Hottest temps ever at LHC and more hints about early Universe
• Food and exercise are not matter and anti-matter
• Weird: Ron Howard Directing Documentary on Jay-Z’s Made in America Festival
• Jodie Foster on the Stewart/Pattinson spectacle
• Keanu Reeves spills what Bill & Ted 3 is actually gonna be about
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to U.S. Interests in the Middle East
• Surreal: The General Mills Lawn Protester Has Died
• Humor: 45-year-old salesman apologises for closing ceremony
• Today’s not for epileptics website: https://www.staggeringbeauty.com/

More at buzzfeed.

First modern Olympic Games in Athens, 1894 – via

Two very interesting Olympics based items popped up today. The first is a collection of photos from the Olympics of past that goes all the way back to the very first games. That can be found here.

And also, this video that profiles just what professional photographers will go through to cover events like track and field from every angle to get that one shot.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s “View from the Window at Le Gras” was taken in 1826 and is considered the world’s oldest surviving photograph. Starting September 9, the photo, which is usually housed in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, will be on display at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim.

via Smithsonian Magazine Retina

A slideshow by renowned animal photographer Tim Flach with annotations about their body language

In science/tech:

• New Computer Will Simulate One Billion Neurons
• Microsoft reveals a muscle controlled computer interface
• Voyager 1 is getting close to ‘the edge’ of interstellar space
• The waves in Quantum Mechanics are real
• The discovery of a HIV protein’s structural change
• The Greenland Ice Melt might not be as apocalyptic as some would make it out to be
• Plants Can ‘Talk’ To Each Other by Clicking Their Roots

In society:

• Why Bronze Medalists Are Happier Than Silver Medalists
• A US Marine couple’s personal account of the Aurora Shooting
• Scientology’s insane concentration camp for it’s Executives
• A counter-editorial of Why Men Can’t Have It All
• Still haven’t seen ‘Girls’, but the parody trailer ‘Boys’ looks good
• Revealed, at last: why women live longer than men
• How to rewire your brain for success
• Do You Believe in Magic? Yes, You Do.
• Interesting Chronicling: history’s changing understanding of mammals
• Lost footage from The Karate Kid

Others:

• Project allRGB: creating images using only one pixel for each rgb color (16,777,216)
• Online app: based on weight/height, who’s your Olympic equivalent?
• The internet map: websites illustrated according to traffic and user activity
• Web-based Game Boy emulator with a slew of games to choose from
• Video: some guy almost walks into a bear while texting

Going in the literal opposite direction of Navid Baraty, is this photo series by French photographer/designer Eva Bouvard photographs ‘up’ buildings and skyscrapers.

more at whudat.de

NASA asked the public to vote on their favourite images from more than 120 images in the online ‘Earth as Art’ collection acquired by the Landsat programme over the last 40 years. The winner was this image, called Van Gogh from Space due to its similarity to Van Gogh’s painting Starry Night. In the satellite photo, acquired on 13 July 2005, massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirl in the dark water around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea.

More via The Telegraph picture gallery

Asperatus clouds over Scotland via The Cloud Appreciation Society

• Olympic opening ceremony: Ai Weiwei’s review
• South Korea’s Im Dong Hyun:the ‘blind’ Olympics world record setting archer
• There Are Four Olympic Athletes Without Countries To Represent
• The Greatest Chris Brown Album Review of All Time: ‘No Stars Ever’
• Music Labels Won’t Share Pirate Bay Loot With Artists
• Computer confirms: All music sounds the same these days
• Strong evidence that a real name policy would fail to improve comment systems
• The New York Times is Now Supported by Readers, Not Advertisers
• Celebrities and their Unnecessary Public Apologies
• From Forbes: “The porn industry as I knew it is dead. And it appears a new industry has arisen.”
• Heath Ledger’s Joker was probably inspired by Tom Waits (gets an automatic yes from me)
• Where Did John Wayne Get His Walk?
• Ancestry.com Claims Obama Is Descendant of John Punch, First Enslaved African-American
• Mitt Romney follows up insulting London with straight-up racism in Israel
• Horror Hospital: The Most Shocking Photos And Testimony From The Dawood Military Hospital Scandal (warning: very graphic)
• Fall, Mortality, and the Machine: Tolkien and Technology
• Climate change study forces sceptical scientists to change minds
• The 50 Best Socially Awesome/Awkward Penguin Memes

Capturing images in the infrared light spectrum makes for some really gorgeous pictures. Be sure to check out the rest.

More awesomeness at slightlywarped.com

Photographer Navid Baraty is a jerk that takes awesome photos from over the edge of New York skyscrapers. Obviously he’s not really a jerk (or at least I can’t say so, cause I’ve never met the man but I’m sure he’s an upstanding citizen), but sweet jebus some of these photos remind a bit too easily, the whole horrible heights fearing thing.

via